This invention relates to computing equipment including multiple microprocessors, and more particularly to parallel processing and multi-user multi-tasking systems.
Modern high performance computing systems achieve their high performance by using high speed processors and rapid-access memories. Techniques such as cache memories and instruction pipelines provide an additional increase in performance. Complex operating systems are commonly used to allocate computing resources to provide multi-user and multi-tasking operation. Even more complex operating systems are required to insure continued system operation without loss of data when systems components fail. System components are typically interconnected by using time division multiplexed buses. When the number of system elements becomes large, the system performance can become limited by the bus bandwidth.